Since 1996, Democracy Now! has closely followed the national debate over capital punishment in the United States. See our interviews with key scholars, journalists and activists over the years. We have covered extensively the death row cases of Troy Davis and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

In this extended web-only interview, Sister Helen Prejean talks about the 20th anniversary of her landmark book "Dead Man Walking," that chronicles her years of anti-death penalty activism. [includes rush transcript]

In a remarkable story on the journey from grief to forgiveness, Bill Pelke joins us along with renowned activist and "Dead Man Walking" author Sister Helen Prejean to discuss the latest victory for the movement against the death penalty. On Monday, the state of Indiana freed Paula Cooper, the Indiana woman convicted for the 1985 murder of Pelke’s grandmother, elderly Bible school teacher Ruth Pelke, in Gary, Indiana. At the...

In order to win his newfound freedom, Memphis death row prisoner Timothy McKinney had to plead guilty to a murder he maintains he did not commit. McKinney was initially convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the fatal shooting of police officer Don Williams in December 1997. McKinney appealed and won a new trial, which ended with a deadlocked jury. A third trial earlier this year also ended in a hung jury. As part of a...

The Mississippi Supreme Court has blocked the execution of Willie Jerome Manning just hours before he was scheduled to die. The case attracted national attention after the FBI admitted that its original analysis of the evidence in Manning’s case contained errors. Last week the Mississippi Supreme Court refused to allow new DNA testing that could prove Manning’s innocence.

The state of Mississippi is preparing to execute an African-American prisoner tonight, despite an unusual admission from the FBI that its original analysis of the evidence contained errors. Willie Jerome Manning was convicted of murdering Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, two white college students, in 1992. The execution is going...

Although Duane Buck’s guilt is not in question for the 1995 murder of his former girlfriend Debra Gardner and her friend Kenneth Butler, critics say jurors in his case were led to choose a death sentence over life without parole based on testimony of a state psychologist who argued that African-American criminals are more likely to pose a future danger to the public. We’re joined by two guests: Linda Geffin, the second-chair...

The former warden of San Quentin State Prison, Jeanne Woodford, joins us to discuss why she has come out in favor of Proposition 34, a ballot initiative to abolish the death penalty in California. Home to nearly a quarter of the nation’s death row population and in a state coping with budget crisis, independent analysts estimate that getting rid of the death penalty could save California taxpayers $130 million annually. The latest polls...

We speak with three people who joined us for our special live broadcast on the night Troy Davis was executed in Jackson, Georgia, including his sister, Kimberly Davis. "This is a tough time both for me and my family, but as my brother said, he always wanted us to continue the fight and to keep the faith, and that’s what we’ve been doing," Kimberly Davis says. As Texas executed its eighth prisoner of the year Thursday,...

One year ago today, the state of Georgia executed Troy Anthony Davis for a crime many believe he did not commit. He was put to death on Sept. 21, 2011, despite major doubts about evidence used to convict him of killing police officer Mark MacPhail, including the recantation of seven of the nine non-police witnesses. As the world watched to see whether Davis’s final appeal for a stay of execution would be granted by the U.S. Supreme...

Advocates for child victims of sexual abuse are calling on Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett to grant clemency to Terrance "Terry" Williams, who is scheduled to be executed on October 3. In 1986, Williams was convicted of killing Amos Norwood. What the jury in that case did not know is that Norwood had sexually abused Williams and had allegedly violently raped him the night before. Furthermore, Williams had suffered years of physical and...